Winner: Timberland and Porter Novelli
Campaign: Differentiating the Timberland Story: "The Timberland Way"
CSR may be only recently en vogue among the majority of corporations, but a handful of companies have been pioneers for sustainable business practices for years - among them,
Timberland. However, the explosion of participants in the CSR realm challenged Timberland's communications executives to differentiate its efforts from other programs and capture
elusive media attention. Beyond this, execs had to consolidate a number of disparate CSR initiatives and speak to both internal and external constituents in a clear, consistent
way.
With the help of Porter Novelli, the PR team identified the common theme in all of the company's many initiatives - the environment - and built a cohesive story around that.
They positioned the crux of the message around the tagline "The Timberland Way," which was used to reach out to top tier media, often in a one-on-one format. But traditional media
weren't the only target audience. The team embraced new media as a viable platform for disseminating their messages, engaging leading blogs that covered business, CSR and
environmental concerns, and positioning CEO Jeff Swartz and other executives as industry experts.
A well-defined target audience - along with a "live the message" mentality that manifested itself in the construction of a massive solar panel to help power its Ontario
distribution center - kept Timberland ahead of the game. While many companies scrambled to get media attention for new efforts, the communications executives smartly streamlined
past, present and future initiatives, while at the same time practicing what they preached. Their efforts did not go unnoticed: There were top-tier media impressions aplenty, and
the company jumped to No. 6 on Business Ethic's 2006 "100 Best Corporate Citizens List" (from No. 74 in 2005) and landed in Fortune's top five list of most admired apparel
companies.
Honorable Mentions
As the world's fifth largest energy company, Dominion demonstrated an extensive commitment to controlling and improving emissions, as well as healing the impact of past
pollution in its local, Richmond, Va., community by appealing to key legislators through the "Dominion Clean Air Story." By announcing the $500 million investment in pollution
control equipment shortly before the 2006 Virginia legislative session in which an emissions bill could be considered, the company drew state and local media, as well as key
politicians, including the Director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
With more than 2,200 miles to cover, the trip home for 19 rescued penguins of the New Orleans' Audubon Aquarium of the Americas from California to their rebuilt habitat looked
as if it would be a long walk. Fortunately, Ketchum PR helped FedEx assist the flight-challenged birds in taking to the sky as part of its commitment to the recovery efforts in
the Gulf Coast. The "Flight of the Penguins" campaign revealed the return to normalcy for the Audubon Aquarium and the continued redevelopment of New Orleans. In addition to the
$100,000 donation to the center, FedEx demonstrated its continued responsibility in the community and improved consumer perceptions of the transportation organization.
As the largest network of kidney dialysis treatment centers in the U.S., Fresenius Medical Care North America (FMCNA) stepped up their services and ensure that all dialysis
patients - both FMCNA and non-FMCNA patients - in disaster-stricken areas received the treatments they needed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In response to the absence of
structure during their patient's time of need, FMCNA used the Loomis Group to launch an educational campaign - "Disaster Preparedness Saves Lives of Dialysis Patients" - to ensure
patients had the information they needed to prepare for an emergency and knew how to get treatment at such times. The preparedness campaign reached multiple print, online and
television resources, informing patients throughout the Gulf Coast and St. Louis, MO on what to do in times of crisis.